This invention electronically restricts water flow to a showerhead when a detected bather is within its electronically partitioned water restrictive flow zone in a shower enclosure. Taking a shower consumes nearly 20% of total residential water usage according to reports for conventional constructed homes. A conventional showerhead is rated at 2.5 gallons per minute. On average, each bather spends eight minutes in a shower. During 20% of that eight minutes wastes some 20 gallons of good quality potable water doing lathering or shampooing.
This invention deploys a completely hand free, fully automated fail safe and simple to install system allowing consumers to enjoy their shower and help save water at the same time. The invention utilizes a showerhead restrictor system that tracks and measures occupant movement into an electronically partitioned low or no flow zone. The invention saves over four gallons of clean potable water per person per shower on average.
There have been various attempts in the past to propose a water saving showerhead system but none of them performs satisfactory nor economically. Some products offer passive monitoring of excessive water usage then light up indicator lamps to warn a bather it is time to vacate. Some products send water usage data to share and compare with friends via smart phones. Some products punish a bather by shutting off water for period of set time before resuming water flow.
Some products use a normally closed electromagnetic valve fitted with sensors. Other products use a pinch motor to control flow of water. It is a widely known fact that a normally closed electromagnetic valve and a pinch motor can fail in the middle of taking a shower. When such a system fails, water will be shutoff to showerhead. A bather in the middle of shampooing may panic and scramble to seek help while still inside the shower enclosure. However, there is nothing the bather can do in this situation. Therefore, the normally closed valve and pinch motor design are not the optimal solution for controlling showerhead flow and can create a dangerous and hazardous situation because the bather may be unable to open his eyes under a head covered with shampoo.
The present invention offers an advanced water saving showerhead system which is fail safe in an event of system failure that also helps save water and heating energy.